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25 September 2011

What does being held accountable mean? What does commitment mean?

One of the questions I ask in interviews is, "If your last chef could say what one of your strengths and one of your weaknesses was, what would they say?" I find that this question startles a lot of people, which I find odd.

Having always been my own worst critic, my worst enemy, I have gottent to know my weaknesses well over the years. Call them character defects, call them personality, call them "places from which to grow," call them what you want. We love and despise certain characteristics we posess. We hope to change some of them, some traits we water and grow in our personal garden, hoping they take root and flourish and bear delicious ripe fruit. We hope some of the fruit we bear will seed and spread amongst our friends and lovers.

However it is we think of the things we don't like in ourselves, it is my belief that it takes a certain quantity of maturity to recognize them, recognize ourselves, dreadful and good alike.

The hubris it takes to say one is the best is the very same to say we are the very worst. Narcissism takes all the air in the room so that no one else may breathe. The prisoner is everyone.

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There's a terrible irony in becoming a Chef. When you're a cook the idea is that you show up every day and do the tasks at hand, no matter what. When you're a cook your hours are mostly laid out for you. You agree on a wage and work your ass off. You listen to your chef and eventually, hopefully, come to revere and respect them, taking their orders without question, without retort, without attitude.

Cooking, being a craft, and both being verbs, means that we cooks judge each other, harshly mostly, by what we see. It doesn't matter if you worked 20 hours a day at your last post-- if you're working at this one 14 hours a day that's all that matters. Your resume is a useless fucking piece of paper when you take out your knives.

Respect from your charges, your peers, your support staff, the FOH management/ownership doesn't come easily. You have to earn it. You have to beg for it. You have to mean it. Every day, every minute. Not just when it suits you. Not just when you're in a good mood. Not just when you're getting laid regularly.

When you're a cook you begin to learn to navigate. I can't stress this word enough. N A V I G A T E. Them there's some treacherous waters out there. word. Things are not as they appear. People are not as they say they are. I've worked in kitchens where people were mean on purpose or fucked up your mis en place up when you turned your head. Competiton can be fierce. Cooks have to know why the fuck you were hired/promoted/brought in and they'll test you at every turn.

The irony? The irony is that it's exactly the same when you're the Chef. Nothing changes. Except that you're in charge of all those pirates you used to be. Not only do you have to Navigate other Chefs, you have to steer the coup ship through hungry alligators.

The irony is that...

when you were a cook sweating your balls off every night {yes I am speaking about female cooks here too} wondering why your Chef remained calm and seemingly cool on the other side of the pass, expediting

and you thought they had it easy-- they just strolled in and

1. called tickets 2. did the ordering 3. went to the market 4. wrote the schedule 5. talked on the phone to purveyors 6. figured out the labor costs and 7. bla 8. bla 9. bla

and you wondered what the fuck do they do all day.

...when you become The Chef, it's impossible to explain to the cooks on the line, what the fuck it is you do all day and night to make it look easy. All you can think is this-- if these kids stick around long enough they'll see. The joke's on everyone.

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A number of people have come to me in recent months because they want to learn how to bake. They are asking for work, they are asking to stage, they are showing interest in working with me. Some of them are established savory cooks, some of them have never seen the inside of a professional kitchen before. A few have gone to culinary school, many have not.

While I can appreciate the bravery it takes to reach out and ask for a chance, I fear most people do not understand the commitment.

Whether you are working for free, or not, the commitment is the same. Here are some helpful pieces of advice I can assure you other chefs, professional chefs, will appreciate you knowing before you set out to seek such a relationship/situation/experience:

Do not, not for one minute, think you are doing that chef a favor. You're not. An extra person is just that. Extra people need MORE energy than day to day workers. Do not, not for one second, think that because you are "extra" that you can fuck-off on your promise to that chef for the committed time. Know this: that to get a trail, to be placed on a schedule, to schedule a working interview, to make a commitment to a chef IS TO MAKE A PROMISE.A hand-shake is a binding contract. Your name could be smeared if you burn a bridge. Especially if you burn it before you cross it. The chef is not your friend. Write all emails formally, as you would a real typed letter. Address chef formally and sign your full name. In EVERY exchange. Do not speak to chef in email with ridiculous texting language like LOL. Show up to said trail/stage days on time. If you're on time you're late, the saying goes. Sending a thank you note after trailing, even if you despised the kitchen. It's good form. Chefs: always thank the chefs who referred a trail to you. If you send a trail to a chef friend/colleague and you don't hear how it went, follow up and ask. People, all people, like to feel placed, not parachuted in. FOLLOW-UP. DO NOT WAIT FOR the golden egg to get hand delivered to you. A trail is a stage is a try-out. No one makes any promises, usually, before this day takes place. If you arrange for a regular stage {ie more than one day} be very clear, from the onset, to yourself and to the chef, what hours you CAN and CAN NOT work. Write it down and hand it over. If, for any reason at all, you can not keep your promise/commitment, tell said chef ASAP.If you are written onto a schedule whose hours you agreed to ahead of time and you do not arrive at said agreed time/date it is grounds for dismissal and name smearing.Mean what you say and say what you mean. Chefs are not psychics. Needs unspoken can never get met. IT IS NOT THE JOB OF THE CHEF TO CHASE A STAGE. IT IS THE JOB OF A STAGE TO CHASE THE CHEFS' TIME. Chefs despise email. Most of us can't open attachments. CHEFS DO NOT WORK IN OFFICES IN FRONT OF COMPUTERS. If email is the only way you know how to get in touch with someone this is not the field for you. If you want to work in a professional kitchen but you have little to no experience, read this. {I have someone in my kitchen in a top position who read the instructions on this blog and she is one of a number of cooks who have worked with me without ANY previous experience/culinary school degree. YES, it can happen. But you must have persistence! Patience! Humility! Willingness! Open mind & heartedness!} Know what the word ACCOUNTABLE means. Know that Chefs are human, just like you. Chefs have feelings. They struggle with the people they work with, for. Sometimes they jump through a lot of hoops to say yes to a stage or a trail and when you fuck it off it makes it impossible for the next person who may want the same thing as what you said you did. Yes, Chefs have constraints too.

If I had a dime for every savory cook who said, "I really want to spend time with you-- I need to round out my cooking knowledge-- I have a big hole where pastry is concerned-- I like your department so much, can I spend a few days with you?-- my savory chef gives me no direction & I'm jealous of your cooks--" and on and on.

The thing is this: When you enter into a contract, and agreement, with a chef, you make a promise. BOTH OF YOU MAKE A PROMISE. TO THE OTHER. yeah? Get it?

The thing is this: working for someone is an exchange. Know what reciprocity means? You Both Need Each Other. I take, you take. I give, you give. ad infinitum.

To make the relationship work, one of you can't be absent. One of you disrespects the other when the promise is not made good on. It's like being stood up. Professionally. It's like double booking.It's fucked-up. Don't do it.

I tell people who want to work for free the same thing as what I tell people I hire. Make a commitment. To yourself, to me, to the establishment, to the department. IT'S ALL ONE IN THE SAME. Get it? Making a commitment, even if it's a silent one to yourself, is a commitment worth keeping. The hardest time you'll have with homesickness could be the 364th day but if you don't give a place a year you haven't given yourself a chance to stick it out.

I may sound old-fashioned when I say all this but manners go a long way these days. People, especially old school chefs with more than a few ounces of professionalism, take notice.

If none of this makes sense or matters to you, my guess is that you've worked for few chefs who've held you accountable for your actions/in-actions.

That's too bad-- the chefs who have forced me to keep my word have taught me the meaning of it.

Thanks for posting. So many people are going into the industry blind nowadays; so many young cooks don't know the meaning of respect. It's refreshing to hear someone speaking honestly and with true concern for those looking to embark in this field. It's not easy.

I could use this for anything. I really could. Not just for Chefs, but for other professions. This advice is profoundly real and not fluffy. This is truth.

I am not a chef today because of my lack of commitment to a kitchen, a team, a chef. I love cooking, but I lacked the discipline and real love of cooking at that level to keep at it. I learned early on that cooking for a living was not my destiny. However I love cooking for pleasure...leisurely and without pressure of customers,and critics.

I admire your honesty and truth telling. Add teacher and sage to your long lists of talents.

Love this, and I love that you are getting the recognition that you deserve in a wider field.

I think I know what you mean about the rabbit hole, and I think I'm on my way into it, but I'm loving it. I think one thing that is happening with me is that I actually need to chill out a bit and be a little less worried about everything, and about letting people down as it is actually stopping me from being the pastry cook I could be.

What a coincidence, and a great thing to read! I JUST got a call to stage in a few days, and honestly wasn't sure what to expect. Thank you for your comprehensiveness and honesty-- this was extremely helpful.

One of the reasons I love reading your column is that your writing and your industry have so much in common with mine (architecture/construction). We work crazy hours for the love of it. And everything you say here could be said almost exactly of my world (well, except for mise en place - we don't have that).

As someone who has my own business and works every day to do the best for my clients I know that nothing - NOTHING - is as important as my word and my hard work. I am my own, and only, marketing. And if I don't do what I say I will, do it honestly and as hard as I can, and do it with commitment, I will not have work. And I cannot keep people in my orbit who can't do the same as they will just drag me down.